(RNS) “If you do not understand the messianic and apocalyptic imagery used by all sides, and how wide-ranging those images were among all classes, all groups, all nations, you cannot hope to understand the war,” scholar Philip Jenkins says.

BROOKLYN, N.Y. (RNS) All of the specimens at Torah Animal World died of natural causes, swears Rabbi Shaul Shimon Deutsch, and were not hunted in the wild: “Instead of turning them into a fur coat I use them for education.”

On YouTube channel SoulPancake, host Zach Anner visits Mendy Pellin, a Hasidic Jew and president of Jewbellish, and asks several enlightening questions like: How has being a father changed your relationship to your faith? Do all yarmulkes have yellow zippers? Why are people paying over 100 bucks for a lemon?

WASHINGTON (RNS) From the Orthodox to the unreligious, U.S. Jews feel deeply connected to Israel even if they “struggle with Israel’s realities.” That’s a Jewish struggle, said one rabbi: It is “an act of love; it is not an act of disengagement.”